How Much?! Why we should care about the closure of Kitsbow

Isn’t part of the problem that if you sell well-made, long-lasting clothing, the customer shouldn’t need to come back and buy again for years? Which is great, but doesn’t necessarily fit the scale of company we’re talking about here.

At some point expansion or even sustaining your size is not possible, because the customer base is mostly satisfied and busy wearing out their current clothing.

Doesn’t mean that any of these firms are not worthy, we should all be buying stuff that lasts us many years.

Would it be a net benefit or a net loss if we all stopped buying goods produced in countries with a low standard of living. Would those workers be better or worse off? Is a sweatshop job better than no job?

I thought the general idea was to increase the amount of goods made in the UK?

85% of garment workers are women
Fast fashion workers are generally not allowed to form unions or discuss salary

There was a woman on the radio the other day who had worked for a factory from a very early age – she worked a 16 hour day & earned less for a weeks work than anyone here does in an hour.

That’s not OK

@brant

I’m not sure I’m really needing convinced that fast fashion is bad in every possible way. Sadly though we seem to be at a Vimes Boots junction where those that that can afford can (if they choose to do so) and those that can’t just have to get by unless they are fortunate enough to find good stuff second hand.

I think my former point is better expressed this way:

Hebtroco sell shirts at £80 – £110 (not the jacket type ones) Yet Kitsbow were double that. What corners are you cutting to get that low or is it (more likely) a case that Kitsbow were either just taking the piss and appealing to the aspirational Instagram crowd or being wildly unrealistic with their wages?

a case that Kitsbow were either just taking the piss and appealing to the aspirational Instagram crowd or being wildly unrealistic with their wages?

Not to disparage what HTC are doing, but they are two dodgy geezers and a couple of dogs. They are getting factories to make their stuff for them to pattern sizes to keep in stock. Kitsbow is a much larger organisation and all their (high value) production is pretty much custom made from scratch on site by employess of Kitsbow, All of that comes at a price.

Hebtroco sell shirts at £80 – £110 (not the jacket type ones) Yet Kitsbow were double that.

Wool overshirt from Hebtroco is £175, ~$220. Kitsbow merino shirt was $290 on their site, listed down to $230. Yes more expensive but not double, about +30%.

Also, compare the standard of living of the UK and US. They are on average better off then we are in the UK. So that $290 shirt is not as expensive to an average American compared to an average Brit.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-average-salary-uk-vs-us-get-ahead-by-linkedin-news/

 

 

 

I try to buy clothing of quality that will last when ever I can, but with Kitsbow I just didn’t see the added value over other (often UK based) quality ethical clothing companies, especially at the costs that they were asking, so I’ve never invested in their product.

Maybe the market they had has changed and they weren’t quick enough to adapt to the fluctuation. One reason the supermarkets are having issues is they are too slow and lumbering to adapt quickly so smaller organisations and shops can take advantage of that. Possibly Kitsbow became to big an outfit and was unsustainable them selves?

Talking about the cost of things here’s a couple of examples . Last year when Shimano/ Madison / Freewheel stopped running Pearl Izumi I was able to buy some of their riding trousers ( not pants 🙄) half price at £50 and I’m guessing a profit was still made so how much was made when they were £100 a pop ?
Troy Lee open face helmets being knocked out at £40 down from £100 just when they bring out a new version, again profit still being made I guess?Most kit nowadays comes from China that used to mean cheap not anymore. My mates Rapha MTB jacket in Blue £130 if you want a Black one £300 his verdict? £130 is about the right price no way is it worth £300
Finally on jackets this Bluesign environmentally friendly manufacturing, reading the reviews on Enduras new MT500 opinion is it’s not waterproof so a lot of BS going on here .

Don’t assume they made a profit after dropping the price. Often stock is sold off at below cost in order to make space for incoming new lines.

Living in the UK, how is it more environmentally friendly for my shirt to be flown in to me from North Carolina, rather than flown in from Portugal?

Living in the UK, how is it more environmentally friendly for my shirt to be flown in to me from North Carolina, rather than flown in from Portugal?

There’s a lot of possible reasons here – different transport, single stop routing, and packaging have different impacts so the finished product alone could be more environmentally sound to ship from a more distant sorce than a closer one.

In practice there’s a good chance that the only thing that happened in Portugal is the box got changed and a label sewn in (or whatever the bare minimum is such that it counts as a product of Portugal) and that the actual garment is sourced from much further afield somewhere with poor environmental and labour protections so that the cost could much higher than the USA sourced one which was potentially grown, processed, and manufactured there with much lower impact.

Made

Living in the UK, how is it more environmentally friendly for my shirt to be flown in to me from North Carolina, rather than flown in from Portugal?

I’m not sure anyone was arguing that’s the case. There’s probably a world in which, if you were buying from a Portuguese factory with very unsustainable manufacturing processes using fabrics produced using similarly unsustainable methods, compared to a US factory with impeccably sustainable processes, then it might genuinely be less damaging on paper to buy from the States. But that’s not really what this story’s about.

@jameso @mark Have you remembered to add sales tax to those prices?

Not to disparage what HTC are doing, but they are two dodgy geezers and a couple of dogs. They are getting factories to make their stuff for them to pattern sizes to keep in stock. Kitsbow is a much larger organisation and all their (high value) production is pretty much custom made from scratch on site by employess of Kitsbow, All of that comes at a price.

@nickc so what you’re saying is that, actually, it’s really inefficient to try and do everything on site without economies of scale? I only got a 3 for Standard Grade economics and even I find that really obvious.

It’s still perfectly possible to do what Kitsbow do without doing everything in house, that’s why people vet their supply chains so you get all the advantages of economies of scale with the same outcome. All that boring ISO 200x accreditation actually means something.

probably get some grief for this but I own one, bought last summer after moving to the US for work. I love it, probably not worth the money but a lovely shirt. I probably wear it more often than anything else I own. I wear kit out as I commute every day and ride most weekends. I can give a fair insight into the durability of most brands from Aldi / Lidl specials to Rapha & Assos. I would say the shirt is next level in terms of quality.

probably get some grief for this

Only if you don’t wear it with women’s underwear whilst eating buttered scones for tea.

@jameso @mark Have you remembered to add sales tax to those prices?

No, they don’t show it in the RRP do they. Only adds 5-10% to the US RRP though?

All that boring ISO 200x accreditation actually means something.

Insurance for the brands more than any meaningful worker protection. I’ve seen how audits can be fudged.

Can I phrase this another way? how many hours of work (ie, work at your current job) do you think is acceptable in exchange for a shirt, or a pair of shoes, or a bike?

Personally, I’ve never ‘got’ flannel shirts at all and have no idea why they seem to linked to the outdoors.

They handle the outdoor stains better, when your BBQ burger tomato sauce/beer ends up down the front of them its not so obvious.

Personally, I’ve never ‘got’ flannel shirts at all and have no idea why they seem to linked to the outdoors.

As someone else has just referenced…

As I understand it the rag trade is for the most part a high volume industry even at the medium to lower end. If you are not shifting massive amounts of stock, it’s bloody expensive to get anything made, similar to small batch engineering work.

I watched a thing which followed a prominent female owner of a manufacturing facility and to say she was shrewd was an understatement! If you’re a small fish, she/her team wouldn’t even entertain your makeshift enquiry. Never mind some influencer/blagger bowling up with some back of a fag packet ideas of building a clothing brand. There are middlemen who deal with these people and trouser a premium for the privilege, with the idiots getting pennies or making a loss. It’s that real world again isn’t it!

“Premium Product” everyone is selling premium now-a-days, not to mention premium stuff being just the the stuff that hasn’t been so cost reduced it’s barley fit for purpose and in some cases isn’t. LMFAO talk about being nudged, the word premium used and abused to the point of being meaningless!

@nickc so what you’re saying is that, actually, it’s really inefficient to try and do everything on site without economies of scale?

I read the blog of a woman trying to make bike clothing and she essentially said, choose either to go for maximum volume, or stop pretending that it’s anything but a hobby and get a proper job, as there’s more or less nothing in between.

I guess Kitsbow just proved it, even with the volume they were selling.

I think they made 2 big mistakes. The number of people willing to pay that much for a garment ones rather limited to start with. If they are genuinely interested in sustainability then those products should need replacing less often so you need to find more customers will to pay the high price as the first lot aren’t worn out. So they are making their market smaller and smaller the more the sell.

The alternative if it’s marketing bs and they hope people will buy new ones just as often

This is a great question @ajaydoubleyou

Can I phrase this another way? how many hours of work (ie, work at your current job) do you think is acceptable in exchange for a shirt, or a pair of shoes, or a bike?

I’ll open the bidding at an hour for a shirt, two hours for shoes and a week for a bike.

I’m going to take a guess that a factor in this companies demise is Heath Care costs. They will have been paying for the health care costs of it’s employees and that is really expensive

My family history involves the tweed industry. My grandfather and uncle both ran mills. I understand things cost. Happy to support ‘local’ to a point but when the premium starts to get to 50% greater there’s a line to be drawn, particularly when your premium is 50% over Patagonia prices.

It does feel like they were just the wrong combination of size, price and marketing to be long term viable.

Hopefully STW will now be banging the drum for other local brands who have actually made it work. Looking at the Kitsbow bib shorts, the closest comparison I could make is Lusso in very nearby Manchester. Retail price for near identical products was $249 vs £85. And that was being generous to Kitsbow – Lusso have other high quality options for less, most with Italian made pads and European fabrics, plus decades of experience in making stuff that fits and lasts.

Lusso –

Handmade in Manchester
We are proud to offer clothing that is made right here in the UK. You can trust that you are getting products made with care, by highly skilled machinists who are passionate about their work.

Cheers Mick, I didn’t know that, I feel I should do. Worth knowing.

https://www.lusso.bike/

Yeah Jameso, imagine if they were just down the road from a bike mag / website who could give them a front page article 🙂…..

They’d already been established 7 years when I got my first MTB and Lusso gear in 1989. They now regularly win tests / beat Castelli etc in the road bike mags.

And sponsor the local mtb series!

I’ll open the bidding at an hour for a shirt, two hours for shoes and a week for a bike.

So, £27.33 for a shirt, £54.66 for shoes and £1048.36 for a bike.

That’s before I pay tax on those earnings (£54kpa).

FWIW that’s probably about half what I’d say is reasonable value for mass market, go to 2.5 to 3 times that and you’re getting into high quality that should last, anything above that is probably high priced tat that’s only sold to people who like other people to know how much money they have (see the Prada shirt).

Some exceptions apply, obviously.

Now the problem with that is 2.5h of labour from me (before tax) is probably going to translate to about double that for someone on minimum wage who, by virtue of being subjectively poor can’t pay premium prices and so can’t pay more for higher quality. And we’re back to Vimes’ boots.

So we get back to “what is a fair wage”? I’d say a fair wage would allow the worker to buy a quality product at cost or subsidised price for the same labour cost at my wage (ie, 3h labour for a shirt, 5h for a pair of shoes and 2.5 weeks for a bike). Obviously that only works if whoever you work for makes those items but it’s a start. I think. I’ve a feeling I’m going to get corrected on this.

@mickr never heard of Lusso either.

Mick, I’d heard of Lusso but tbh don’t really pay much attention to lycra bike clothing brands/kit personally and Lusso sounds a bit Italian which doesn’t help. Knowing it’s made in the UK does. Wonder if they make kit for other brands.

Just seen they are even offering free repairs on things bought direct!

Hopefully they will expand the cargo and gravel / MTB side of things. We mostly use the shorts under MTB kit – the 3/4 thermal bibs are great for winter slop under waterproof shorts.

Anyway – enough evangelism from me. Just wanted to highlight that it is possible to do low volume / local / handmade / quality / fairly priced.

From:- https://www.gittemary.com/2020/11/fast-fashion-sweatshops-isnt-a-poorly-paid-job-better-than-no-job.html

Fast facts about fast fashion workers:
There are roughly 40 million garment workers in the world today
Only 2% of whom are paid a livable wage
They are some of the lowest-paid workers in the world
85% of garment workers are women
Fast fashion workers are generally not allowed to form unions or discuss salary

That’s just social impact, and we rarely focus on the exogenous costs of consumption. The fashion industry is shocking.

From:https://www.genevaenvironmentnetwork.org/resources/updates/sustainable-fashion/

The Environmental Footprint of Fast Fashion

• The equivalent of one garbage truck full of clothes is burned or dumped in a landfill every second (UNEP, 2018)
• Approximately 60% of all materials used by the fashion industry are made from plastic (UNEP, 2019)
• 500,000 tons of microfibers are released into the ocean each year from washing clothes — the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017)
• The fashion industry is responsible for 8-10% of humanity’s carbon emissions – more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined (UNEP, 2018). If the fashion sector continues on its current trajectory, that share of the carbon budget could jump to 26% by 2050 (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017)
• Some 93 billion cubic metres of water – enough to meet the needs of five million people – is used by the fashion industry annually, contributing significantly to water scarcity in some regions (UNCTAD, 2020)
• Around 20% of industrial wastewater pollution worldwide originates from the fashion industry (WRI, 2017)

More facts and sources on Business Insider

My wife has been making her own clothes for the past decade. She’s found a supplier of leftover fabrics (you can imagine how much of that there is). Not feasible for most people admittedly, and she’s only ever made me one item of clothing, but has made sun hats, bags and shorts for the kids. I’m ‘planning’ on repairing my favourite trousers using her machines at some point.

I have found a pretty good option for my work shirts though. Tailor Store is Swedish, but seem to have good social and environmental credentials. Their Sri Lankan workers get paid a decent wage.

I think I’d like to understand a bit more about what exactly they were trying to do. For example, were they simply attempting to transplant the method of production from Asia to the US (but with a living wage and benefits and their LEAN manufacturing method)?

Were people sewing clothes together by hand, is what I’d like to know.

If that was the case I’m not really surprised they went under.

I think any company that wants to manufacture in the Western world is going to have to accept that automation is going to be a significant element in it’s business plan.

The options for automation grown massively in the last ten years or so. The plethora of open source options, both in terms of hardware and software, means that small manufacturers have options that simply did not exist just a few years ago.

Anyway, I’d like to understand a bit more about how Kitsbow worked before drawing any conclusions. It does sound like they were relying on customers being prepared to pay a ‘conscious tax’ rather than figuring out a profitable way to compete with Asian sweat shops.

https://qz.com/1064679/a-new-t-shirt-sewing-robot-can-make-as-many-shirts-per-hour-as-17-factory-workers

There remain a good few manufacturers making it work here and with local repairs and servicing in the UK as a bonus.
Think about the likes of Lomo, Findra, Lusso(mentioned above) and a personal favourite, Keela in Glenrothes.
Everyone imports at one level or another in the supply chain but by buying stuff with some local input, we can help support better paying manufacturing jobs. There are several good reasons why the Keela outdoor kit is popular with the Scottish ski resort managers for their patrol team kit and several MRTs up here; the kit lasts pretty well and can be sent locally for repair. I’m wearing a pair of their Scuffers outdoor trousers that still look fine at about 8 years of hard use as an event medic.
Even Endura still offer a repairs and alterations service at their site in Livingstone, which I’ve used a couple of times.

Maybe we should have a thread on ‘Oldest clothing still in functional condition/regular use’.
My first bid is an Endura Jaffa pertex shell from about 1998. Worn at Tentsmuir for a bimble about on Sunday past. I think hailstones would go straight through it but it keeps the wind off.

imagine if they were just down the road from a bike mag / website who could give them a front page article

They – Lusso, make Roadie clothing, why would Singletrack – A mountain bike magazine, be interested?

If you go to Lusso’s website, it’s filled with glowing reviews from Roadie mags, It seems like they get pretty good exposure already.

They – Lusso, make Roadie clothing,

but are expanding into gravel clothing, so based on the direction of mag articles and most ‘weekend ride photos’ threads that should be bang on for Singletrack.

so based on the direction of mag articles and most ‘weekend ride photos’ threads that should be bang on for Singletrack.

I swear I’m getting closer and closer to a rant about gravel biking on a mountain bike website.

Don’t hold back. Go for it 🙂